Examining the literary history of Hanukkah, Jack Zaientz notes that, when compared to Passover or Purim, it inspired relatively little in the way of midrashic embellishments. The one exception may be the story of Judith and Holofernes—which like, the Hanukkah story itself, comes from an ancient Jewish work that the rabbis excluded from the canon. According to the popular medieval rabbinic compilation known as Kol Bo, it was this story that explained the now-defunct custom of eating cheese on Hanukkah:

It’s not clear why Judith became so beloved to medieval Jews, but the apocryphal protagonist of the book of Judith was Hanukkah’s answer to Purim’s Queen Esther. Dozens of retellings of her story, including the pro-cheese Kol Bo version, were written, distributed, and read in some European synagogues. Judith, following the model of many biblical heroines, was pious, brave, clever, and decisive. When her community of Bethulia considered surrendering to the harsh Assyrian general Holofernes, Judith acted. She prayed, bathed, dressed, and headed out into Holofernes’s camp and into his tent, carrying cheese and wine. And there, under a purple and gold netting that dripped with emeralds, he lay waiting, powerful in his opulence.

After tricking Holofernes into falling asleep drunk on his beautiful bed, the pious seductress cut off his head with his own sword and returned home with the prize wrapped in opulent netting. With trickery, fierceness, and a bit of God’s help, Judith spurred her community into action. The Jews were saved, and peace was restored. But Judith’s story has faded from view. For all the Purim shpils filled with costumed Esthers that I’ve attended, I have never heard [the story read in synagogue], either in its original form or in its medieval rewrite.

The cheese fritters once eaten in celebration of Judith’s courage are, in fact, the culinary ancestors of the latter-day latke.

There is little doubt that if Hizballah had participated more intensively in Saturday’s attack, Israeli air defenses would have been pushed past their limits, and far more damage would have been done. Daniel Byman and Kenneth Pollack, trying to look at things from Tehran’s perspective, see this as an important sign of caution—but caution that shouldn’t be exaggerated:

Iran is well aware of the extent and capability of Israel’s air defenses. The scale of the strike was almost certainly designed to enable at least some of the attacking munitions to penetrate those defenses and cause some degree of damage. Their inability to do so was doubtless a disappointment to Tehran, but the Iranians can probably still console themselves that the attack was frightening for the Israeli people and alarming to their government. Iran probably hopes that it was unpleasant enough to give Israeli leaders pause the next time they consider an operation like the embassy strike.

Hizballah is Iran’s ace in the hole. With more than 150,000 rockets and missiles, the Lebanese militant group could overwhelm Israeli air defenses. . . . All of this reinforces the strategic assessment that Iran is not looking to escalate with Israel and is, in fact, working very hard to avoid escalation. . . . Still, Iran has crossed a Rubicon, although it may not recognize it. Iran had never struck Israel directly from its own territory before Saturday.

Byman and Pollack see here an important lesson for America:

What Saturday’s fireworks hopefully also illustrated is the danger of U.S. disengagement from the Middle East. . . . The latest round of violence shows why it is important for the United States to take the lead on pushing back on Iran and its proxies and bolstering U.S. allies.